


Parenthood isn't Always Easy

by hheath541



Category: Castle
Genre: F/M, Family, Gen, Parent-Child Relationship, Parenthood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-17
Updated: 2014-08-17
Packaged: 2018-02-13 12:59:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,538
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2151618
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hheath541/pseuds/hheath541
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They'd both been lulled into a false sense of security over parenthood. Alexis had been such a well behaved child that Rick had never really had to deal with rebellion and punishments, and Jonathan had been such an easy baby that they'd both let themselves be convinced that he would be just as well behaved.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Parenthood isn't Always Easy

**Author's Note:**

> This is unbetaed, and largely unedited. It was just something that nagged at me, and is very different than anything I've written before. Just a peak into Rick and Kate's lives as parents to a teenager.

It was late, and Rick was sitting in his dark office, listening for the sound of the front door opening while he typed sporadically and mostly aimlessly. His wife was in their bed, reading. It was the third night, in a row, that their son had missed his curfew, and she'd reluctantly agreed that maybe a fatherly lecture would succeed where a mother's anger and a homicide detective's scare tactics had both failed. 

They'd both been lulled into a false sense of security over parenthood. Alexis had been such a well behaved child that Rick had never really had to deal with rebellion and punishments, and Jonathan had been such an easy baby that they'd both let themselves be convinced that he would be just as well behaved. Then, the toddler years hit. Suddenly, everything they said and did was met with screaming and defiance. Thankfully, the phase only lasted a couple months before tapering off, but it was the end of the easy years of parenting.

When Jonathan was three years old, Alexis had her first baby. Because the kids were so close in age, Kate and Alexis often traded babysitting duties so the other could have a night out off. It didn't take long for Jonny to become jealous of the attention given to baby Tina, and start doing things like taking her bottle or toys and hiding them. It took time and lots of work by all the adults, but they finally achieved some semblance of harmony, just in time for Kate to find out she was pregnant again.

Four years was enough of an age gap that there weren't a lot of toys shared between the siblings, but time was another matter. Rick and Kate's daughter, Meranda, was born several weeks early. Her first couple weeks of life were spent in the hospital, and heart and breathing problems meant frequent trips to the doctor for the first couple years. 

All of the focus on his younger sister had Jonny acting up to get attention, and the habit continued into his early school years, meaning at least one parent being called into the school most weeks. His antics were always an attempt to amuse his classmates, reminding Kate so much of Rick when they first met that she sometimes had a hard time being angry at her son. That, the guilt over having to spend so much time focused on his sister, and that he was named in honor of her mother made her lax in punishing him. Rick wasn't much better, preferring to find ways to make his family laugh, and caving too easily at the sight of tears.

By the time he started middle school, most of the calls from Jonny's school had stopped, letting his parents breathe a sigh of relief that's he'd outgrown the bad behavior. For a few years, they were even right. His grades had always been good, proving he had his older sister's head for schoolwork, but he started making straight A's once he stopped focusing on being the class clown. He started doting on his little sister, helping Meranda with her homework, helping her clean her room, and sticking near her when the family went out.

For a few, delightful, years, there was harmony in the Castle household. Then, when Jonny was 14 and Meranda 10, Jim was diagnosed with cancer. Kate was devastated, and Rick shifted his focus to helping his wife cope with the possible loss of her father, while she focused on just getting through each day. 

Jim had become as much a daily part of their family as Martha, who still had a room in their home for her frequent visits, even after two moves. At least one weekend a month saw Jonny or Maranda spending time with their Grandpa at his cabin, and he had dinner at their house at least once a week. Once he retired, Jim insisted on taking over daytime babysitting duty when the kids didn't have school, saying Kate needed her partner at work and they shouldn't be paying someone to look after his grandkids. 

The possibility of losing Jim hit them all hard, but it hit Kate and Jonny the hardest. Kate was terrified of losing her father, but she had the years and unfortunate experience to know that she could and would survive it. Jonny, on the other hand, was faced with the reality of possibly losing someone close to him, for the first time in his life. He idolized his grandfather, having grown up hearing stories from him about his Grandma Jo, and already deciding that he wanted to be a lawyer and save the world, just like his Grandpa and Grandma had. 

The sicker Jim grew, the angrier Jonny grew that the world was taking his hero from him. When Jim died less than two years later, it felt like his world ended. He tried talking to his mom, but Kate was reliving the pain of losing her mother, and understood his anger too well to help dispel it. Rick was trying to hold his family, particularly his wife, together through his own grief, and Meranda was just young enough to miss the full emotional impact of the loss. 

In the early stages of Jim's illness, all it took was a disappointed shake of his head or quiet word alone for him to get Jonny to apologize for any misbehavior. However, an unconscious decision was made when Jim was admitted to the hospital, and it became clear he probably wouldn't be leaving it, not to worry him by mentioning things like missed school or fights with parents. Even still, the fear of disappointing his grandfather kept Jonny from acting out too much. After he died, though, the grief and anger saw Jonny starting fist fights at school, skipping school, lying about where he'd been, sneaking out in the middle of the night, coming home late, and even not coming home at all on one particularly terrifying night.

It didn't take much prompting for Kate to go back to therapy, knowing all too well the dangers of trying to deal with grief on her own, but it took several arguments and finally a parental order to make Jonny go. Once there, he refused to talk. For the first couple meetings, he sat in silence. After awhile, the boredom and silence started to get to him, and he started playing games. Finally, after several weeks, he started answering questions about what game he was playing. Slowly, over time, he started talking about his friends and school, and eventually about his family. 

There wasn't much improvement in his behavior at home or school, though. Which is what had Rick sitting in a dark office, and Kate waiting up in another room. She'd been approached at work by a uniform who thought he'd seen her son loitering in the park with a group of boys well after dark, the night before, but he'd run off before the office could be sure it was really him. After speeding through the last of her paperwork, she'd come barreling through the door yelling for Jonny to get his ass down the stairs and talk to her, just to be informed that he'd snuck out while Rick was writing. 

After several deep breathes to calm her fury, Kate sat down and she and Rick came up with a plan of action. She took Meranda out for dinner and some shopping, while Rick stayed home to wait for their son. When he still wasn't back, when they got home, Kate helped her daughter put away their purchases and cleaned the house up for the night before grabbing a book at random and heading for bed. 

Several hours later, and well past midnight, she hadn't even made it through the first chapter when the front door finally opened. Kate listened while Rick made his presence known and demanded their son come into the office and close the door. No matter how quiet the house was, she still wasn't able to make out more than the occasional murmur from the office down the hall, which didn't stop her from trying. Her phone suddenly chiming made her jump and she grabbed for it in panic. She sighed in relief at the simple email, "Talking. The good kind." 

Parenting may not be as easy as she'd let herself believe, but it was worth it. Even with their issues, her kids were good kids, and Rick was a good father. Kate still had doubts about her own abilities as a mother, but Rick assured her that she was amazing. On their good days, Jonny and Miranda even agreed with him. Days like this made her wonder, but she knew Rick would always be there to fill any cracks she left. That's what partners did, after all.

She knew she wouldn't sleep, but she could at least pay attention to her book. For the first time, she fully registered that it was one of Patterson's, and smiled at the mock annoyance her husband always showed at finding her reading another man's books. Life wasn't always easy, but they'd be ok. They made a good team. All four of them.


End file.
